Thursday, July 21, 2011

On July 21, Moscow police informed the popular Russian news website Gazeta.ru about three arson attacks on cars with tags of North Caucasian regions. Two cars with Dagestani license plates and one car with a Kabardino-Balkarian tag were set on fire in the eastern part of Moscow. The police officials cautioned the cars may have flared up by themselves, but given that all three cars were in close proximity to each other and had North Caucasian regions’ codes, the coincidence is very unlikely.

Moreover, it became apparent that attacks on the cars with North Caucasian plates started at the beginning of June, 2011. Over ten cars with Kabardino-Balkarian and Dagestani license plates were set on fire in the Moscow suburb Balashikha, also situated to the east from Moscow. Independently of police sources, some car services told Gazeta.ru about other cases of car arson attacks, though they were unable to confirm whether the affected vehicles had North Caucasian tags. The number of attacks may thus be even higher.

Leader of the nationalist organization “Russians,” Dmitry Dyomushkin, denied that organized Russian nationalists could be involved in the attacks. “The degree of nationalism in the [Russian] society is extremely high. There are some autonomous groups that do not carry out any political activities, but have switched to a regime of ‘punch, explode, kill,’” Dyomushkin warned.

It appears some Russian nationalists have started to mimic the North Caucasian insurgents, creating small autonomous groups, which then target North Caucasians. If this trend persists, however, and the Russian authorities do not put an end to it, the next step will be attacks on ethnic Russian civilians in the North Caucasus and full-scale civil war.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

On June 29, Russian news agency Regnum published a news story about another hazing scandal. This time it was about six ethnic Russian conscripts running away from a Russian Ministry for Extreme Situations (MChS) training camp in Chelyabinks, in southern Ural. The North Caucasian conscripts allegedly extracted money and physically attacked ethnic Russians. Reportedly there were only 30 ethnic Russian conscripts against 140 North Caucasians, which made it especially hard for the Russians to withstand the pressure. The officers not only did not defend the group of ethnic Russian conscripts against their assailants, but were also themselves subjected to beatings by the North Caucasians. Ludmila Zinchenko, the chairwoman of the Soldiers’ Mothers Organization in Chelyabinks, stated that the Russian military had refused to draft new conscripts from the North Caucasus, so only MChS continues to accept them, which is why their concentration became so high (http://www.regnum.ru/news/1420229.html).

In April 2011, the Russian Ministry of Defense officially rebutted claims about a decrease in its drafting of North Caucasians (http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1396456.html). Yet, the draft from North Ossetia in spring 2011 decreased by threefold from previous conscription campaigns, allegedly because there are more professional soldiers in the Russian army. All quoted conscripts from North Ossetia appear to be ethnic Russians, so the number of ethnic Ossetians drafted to serve in the Russian military is probably even lower (http://region15.ru/news/2011/05/17/10-17). The Russian military is experiencing a severe shortage of conscripts, which already forced it to abolish its plans to reduce the number of conscripts from Dagestan from 4,000 to 400 in spring 2011. Instead, the draft from Dagestan was allegedly increased up to 6,000. Dagestan could dispatch up to 10,000 draftees every year, according to the local experts (http://www.rosbalt.ru/kavkaz/2011/04/22/842284.html). The Dagestani and other conscripts from the North Caucasus appear to be recruited to the Russian army only because of the shortage of manpower in Russia. It thus seems that a separation of Russia and the North Caucasus is already underway, even though officially it is still a semi-taboo topic in the country.

About The Jamestown Foundation

The Jamestown Foundation’s mission is to inform and educate policy makers and the broader community about events and trends in those societies which are strategically or tactically important to the United States and which frequently restrict access to such information. Utilizing indigenous and primary sources, Jamestown’s material is delivered without political bias, filter or agenda. It is often the only source of information which should be, but is not always, available through official or intelligence channels, especially in regard to Eurasia and terrorism.